Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday October 03, 2009 @09:20AM
from the see-guys-we-don't-need-the-moon-really dept.

Earthquake Retrofit writes "NASA has released an extensive report (PDF) on science results from over 100 experiments performed at the International Space Station. From the summary: 'One of the most compelling results reported is the confirmation that the ability of common germs to cause disease increases during spaceflight, but that changing the growth environment of the bacteria can control this virulence. The Effect of Spaceflight on Microbial Gene Expression and Virulence experiment identified increased virulence of space-flown Salmonella typhimurium, a leading cause of food poisoning. New research on subsequent station missions will target development of a vaccine for this widespread malady." I can't tell if this is good news, bad, or both. Also from a quick look at the report, I see that soybeans grow bigger in space with no harmful effect."

Saving lives and reducing injuries: energy absorbing car bumpers derived from needing the lunar lander to touch down (go from fast to stopped) while keeping the occupants alive. Now you know where that honeycomb design came from.

However, Tang was formulated by William A. Mitchell for General Foods Corporation in 1957 and first marketed in 1959. (Sales were poor until they advertised NASA's use of it in 1965.)

Velcro similarly, was invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, who got the idea from burrs on his hunting dog. He put some under a microscope and saw, wait for it...hooks! The name is a portmanteau of the two French words velours and crochet, or 'hook'.

This research does little to get us closer to actually bringing life to other planets. A few weeks back, NASA released a report saying that they can't keep running the ISS, the Shuttle, and their other experiments while also gearing up for a return to the Moon or a mission to Mars.

More specifically, the Augustine commission said that a commitment to going to the moon or Mars would require actually budgeting money to do so-- exploration is not going to happen unless money is allocated to do it. And, in fact, despite great words about exploration, the trend has been for NASA's budget to be cut, not increased, with more and bigger cuts projected in the future. NASA's budget was five percent of the federal budget during the Apollo years. It's recently dropped to a little less than half a percent, and the trend is down, not up.

If I could drop the ISS into the ocean next year and use the money for a Moon/Mars venture, I'd definitely do it.

That's flawed thinking in many ways. First, of course, is that the Space Station is bringing us closer to habitation of space. It may seem dull and routine, but in fact you do need to demonstrate the engineering, and demonstrate it in the real space environment, before you're going to put long-duration habitats on the moon, or Mars, or move on into the asteroid belts. It is a necessary precursor. Think of it as the engineering testbed.

And if we can't even keep up the willpower to stick to a relatively simple mission-- testing out our technologies on a space station in low Earth orbit-- what in the world would make anybody believe that we'd have the resolution to accomplish a really long-term exploration project? Even in the vastly unlikely case that the money saved from the Space Station would then be used for the Moon and Mars, why do you think that that project wouldn't then be cancelled in a few years?